Saturday, March 6
Davidson, N.C.
All day
Davidson College
vs
Southern Conference
Alex Radsky
Alex Radsky Wins SoCon Championship at 133 Pounds
3/6/2010 7:39:09 PM | Wrestling
- Video of Alex Radsky's winning match (added 3/9/10)
- Final Brackets (pdf)
- Team Standings (pdf)
- Finals Results (pdf)
DAVIDSON, N.C. – Alex Radsky became Davidson's first individual Southern Conference wrestling champion since 1969, earning a thrilling 3-2 decision at 133 pounds over top-seed Josh Statum of Chattanooga Saturday during the 73rd annual SoCon Wreslting Championship in Baker Sports Complex.
Radsky is Davidson's first individual champion since Kerry Keith won at 191 pounds for the Wildcats 41 years ago. He is also Davidson's first representative at the NCAA Wrestling Championships since Ian Kaplan received an at-large bid in 1999. Those will take place in Omaha, Neb., March 18-20.
“It feels great to win,” said Radsky. “This was the culmination of a season's worth of work, but it's not over yet. I want to do well at the national championships.”
The first frame was scoreless, but Statum chose bottom and promptly escaped to start the second period. Statum was unable to extend his 1-0 lead and Radsky escaped just as easily from the bottom to start the third. Radsky soon took a shot and grabbed Statum's left leg for the two-point takedown. Statum eventually escaped, but it was not enough as the two remained neutral until the end.
“The great thing about Alex is that he puts in the time to be a champion and worked extra hard in the gym,” said Davidson head coach Bob Patnesky. “The biggest step that he took though was that he truly believes in himself. When you do that, great things will happen.”
His twin brother, Vitaly Radsky, reached the finals at 141 pounds but lost an 8-3 decision to UNC Greensboro's Ivan Lopouchanski, the bracket's second seed. Vitaly had defeated No. 4 David Yost, 3-1 to reach the championship match.
“Vitaly fought hard and almost wrestled a perfect match,” said Patnesky. “He made one mistake though, which you can't do with a wrestler of Ivan's caliber. He'll learn from this experience though and will work towards having a tremendous senior year.”
UNC Greensboro earned its first outright SoCon wrestling championship, snapping Chattanooga's five-year winning streak with 81.5 points and three individual champions.
Tony Gravely (Appalachian State, 125 pounds), Alex Radsky (Davidson, 133), Ivan Lopouchanski (UNC Greensboro, 141), Dean Pavlou (Chattanooga, 149), Turtogtokh Luvsandorj (The Citadel, 157), Victor Hojilla (UNC Greensboro, 165), Byron Sigmon (UNC Greensboro, 174), Austin Trotman (Appalachian State, 184), Dylan Temple (Appalachian State, 197) and Odie Delaney (The Citadel, 285) all earned automatic bids to the NCAA Championships in Omaha, Neb., March 18-20 as individual champions.
Only two top-seeds were crowned as champions as a total of four No. 1 seeds were defeated in the semifinals.
UNC Greensboro's previous best performance was when they were part of a three-way tie for the championship in 1997 (Appalachian State and VMI). The Citadel (74 hung on for second place over Appalachian State (71.5). Chattanooga placed fourth with 43 points and was followed by VMI (37) and Davidson (21).
Davidson was represented in eight of the 10 brackets. At 125 pounds, senior Ben Altman dropped a 5-2 decision to Richard Alarcon (The Citadel) and a close 7-6 decision to defending champion Demetrius Johnson. At 285 pounds, junior Charlie Wolff dropped a 1-0 decision to The Citadel's Odie Delaney before dropping a major decision to defending champion Josh Wine (VMI).
Senior Carl Sandercock (149 pounds), sophomore Tyler Mullen (165), sophomore Jorge Estrada (174) and freshman Ike Crews (184) were also unable to crack the win column.
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